Tuesday, December 22, 2009

State special education definitions of MR/ID

Thanks to Randy Floyd for sending this article to me. The article summarizes state eligibility guidelines for MR/ID as promulgated by state education agencies--thus covering the school-age population of students with potential MR/ID and special education services. State law governing the definition and criteria for Atkin's decisions do not directly correspond with state special education rules, laws, and regulations.

Mental retardation (MR) has traditionally been defined as a disorder in intellectual and adaptive functioning beginning in the developmental period. Guided by a federal definition of MR described in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, it is the responsibility of each of the United States to describe eligibility guidelines for special education services. The purpose of this study was to examine eligibility guidelines for MR for the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This study examined the terms used to describe MR, the use of classification levels, the cutoff scores, and the adaptive behavior considerations for each state. In addition, this study examined guidelines for consideration of intelligence test part scores and consideration of the unreliability of IQs through consideration of the standard error of measurement (SEM) or an IQ range. As found in previous studies, results revealed great variation in the specific eligibility guidelines for MR from state to state. The greatest variation appeared to be across the adaptive behavior considerations. Approximately 20% of states (10) recommend consideration of intelligence test part scores, and approximately 39% of states (20) recommend attention to unreliability of IQs through consideration of the SEM or an IQ range.

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About Me

Dr. Kevin McGrew is Director of the Institute for Applied Psychometrics (llc). Additional information, including potential conflicts of interest resulting from commercial test development or other consultation, can be found at The MindHub(TM; http://www.themindhub.com ). General email contact is iap@earthlink.net.